Impressed
by DullyObsessed
Summary: The first time James impressed Lily happened in the most unexpected of ways. L/J oneshot


He's actually finished with it.

Arm crossed, hair tossed, grin in place, blatant disregard for the rest of humanity. He's the same James, she tells herself, the same level of annoying swagger, the same dangerous twinkle in his eye. It's inconceivable, therefore, as he sits there no doubt discussing all manner of trouble with Sirius, that his potion be finished.

But no, there the cauldron sits, exuding the dark fumes that characterize the Draught of Living Death while hers is still bubbling angrily looking nowhere near done.

She decides he must be doing this on purpose, the tosser, simply to overturn her very axis of reality. Worse still is how Slughorn keeps popping up at her desk, giving her conspiratory winks and such that suggests that he expects brilliance from her by the end of the lesson.

How is she supposed to produce brilliance when the very laws of nature are so grossly disturbed right in front of her eyes?

Truth is, Lily Evans, has always fancied herself a bit of a wiz at potions. It's intuitive to her, really, exactly when to crush, cut, simmer, stir, what to add, how much to add, skills of a true potions prodigy. It's her one saving grace; she may be awful at animal transfiguration, flying and managing time, but potions she excels at.

Which is why, now that they've decided to favour one very unpleasant James Potter, she feels especially betrayed.

Potter, alas, is everything she is not. Cool, calm, unbelievably arrogant and infinitely self assured. The world rests in his very palm. He is born of privilege and understands how to misuse it to guarantee his own entertainment. He _doesn't even know. _He doesn't even realize how stupidly wrong he is, how little entitled he is to what he has.

Just gah. _Merlin. _

As she sits there, absolutely loathing her own pathetic potion for not being more supportive of her feelings, Potter glances at her, right at her, and his hand immediately flies to his hair almost as a reflex reaction. As if his own limbs recognize that he is an utter tosser and do whatever they can to support this hypothesis, then gives her a flimsy wave of sorts before jerking back to his potion.

Shaking her head, Lily Evans attempts to refocus her attention onto the treacherous potion. Crushed dragon fly wings, juiced beetle extract, Sloth brain (controversial but effective) and cut up sophoporous bean. It's all in there, bubbling away at just the right heat, and yet it refuses to behave itself Lily wants to shout at it to do its job right sod it because James Potter's potion listens to him and why can't her potion be more like his, huh? And there goes Slughorn giving Lily a sideways glance and another wink. And Lily cries just a little bit louder inside her head, seriously contemplating flinging herself out the nearest window.

The day has been an unrelenting string of unfortunate events for Lily Evans. First her body malfunctioned in the morning when it decided Runes weren't really necessary and that it was okay to sleep through it. Then she had to rush so as not to miss the aforementioned Runes class and in the process neglected to wash her hair. Or have any breakfast. She is therefore a really toned down, less functioning version of herself today and Merlin, shouldn't Slughorn realize that and stop giving her significant looks over his crystallized pineapple?

And then of course Potter had to stumble into class late, dripping with sweat from Quidditch practice and still manage to brew the potion. While she sat there looking like a knob wondering what the fiddlesticks was wrong with the world today.

She's hungry too. And Marie Hannigan is munching on crisps just two tables down from her, the wretch.

Maybe if she talked to her ingredients like dog whisperers do, they might decide to cut the shenanigans and behave like proper ingredients. There was the vague possibility of that succeeding but Lily was simply too angry at them to attempt any form of polite conversation. While she glared pointedly at her cauldron, trying to communicate her rage, a faint ahem interrupted her (rather petulant) thoughts.  
"You know a watched cauldron never boils, yeah?"

Enter James Potter.

"That," Lily says, adopting a haughty expression she reserves especially for interactions with Potter, "is silly superstition."

"Well, I know for a fact that whispering angrily at the ingredients to 'get their bloody act together' isn't exactly conventional either, Evans," He smirks, "but you seemed to be quite invested in it just now."

(Drat it, how had he seen that)

Attempting to scrabble some form of dignity, Lily opened her mouth to deliver what was going to be a scathing (and terribly witty retort) only to find that her brain had decided to take an unprecedented leave of absence. Which was rather unfortunate really, because it left Lily vacantly opening and closing her mouth like an utter prat, while James observed laughingly.

"Also, didn't know you had it in you to cuss, Evans. Interesting development."

"Piss off Potter."

"Alliteration. Very good, Evans."

"Look, Potter," she says, the complete awfulness of the day catching up to her, "I'm really not in the mood for your humour right now. I'm tired. And I'm hungry. I'm hungry Potter and do you see Hannigan over there with those crisps? Merlin, it's like she _knows_ how much I want them. She's always hated me, you see," she pauses to look significantly at James, "Ever since the Bobby Hopkins fiasco of 1969, but believe you me, he had it coming. So you see, yes? You see why I absolutely can't indulge in your war of words right now. Yes?" She looks expectantly at James, who in turn looks so entirely confused that she wonders whether she actually broke him with that rant.

Still startled by the word vomit that has just ensued, James digs into his pockets and fishes out a chocolate frog.

"Here, Moony's crazy about them."

Seeing the offering (food, actual food!), Lily forgets for a second that Potter is the absolute scum of the earth and her sleep deprived body begins to spew (what she later terms it to be) nonsense.

"Potter, you are the absolute best," Here, his ears sort of go red, "Next time you need a kidney, just holler, yeah? I've got an extra."

He stares at her for a couple of seconds, shakes his head, and then goes, (in this tone full of wonder).

"Wow, I never realized."

"Realized what?" She says her mouth spilling with chocolate-y goodness in the process.

(Wow, she's so attractive)

"That you're kinda loony, Lily," He says, smiling a bit like a loony himself.

(Sometimes she can see why people think he's fit)

Just then the potion gives a promising bubble and Lily leans over to check on it. Nothing seems to have changed though and Lily slumps in her chair, angry at the potion for giving her false hope.

Curious, James Potter sits down and examines it, "It's taking its time isn't it?"

"Stop it, Potter, I know it's an utter failure."

"It should've moved beyond this stage ages ago," He says, straightening his glasses and skimming the textbook. Just then Slughorn passes by with another wink.

"Well, that's got to be annoying," James remarks.

"Immensely," She says.

"The curse of being clever I suppose."

"Oh please, I am not 'clever' at all."

"Course you are" *insertjauntygrin*

(Sometimes James Potter can be considerate)

"Well, I know what the problem is, Evans," He stands up, grin still in place, "It's the sloth stuff," he pronounces and nods sagely.

"Sloth brain," she corrects.

"Right, it's slowing down your potion. Sloths are intrinsically slow animals so asically any sloth based ingredient is usually dumped in at the very end. Otherwise, it just slows down the progress of the potion."

"Oh," she says, feeling quite relieved, "But the book-"

"Has known to be wrong before. Relax, Evans, dump some nightshade in there and it'll probably speed things up a bit."

"Wow," she's surprised, "You're good, Potter." And while she mentally berates herself for inflating his ego further, Potter coughs awkwardly and turns a fetching shade of bright red.

"Right well, made that mistake too many times so…" He trails off; she continues to look at him in surprise.

"Thank you Potter," she says sincerely. It's probably the first sincere thing she's ever said to him.

"S'alright, Evans. Well, I'll be going then," he says awkwardly hooking his thumb in Sirius' direction.

"Right," she says still somewhat surprised at the turn of events.

He walks off, only looking over his shoulder once to holler, "I'll be expecting that kidney soon, Evans," which elicits varying levels of confusion from their class mates.

After the strange encounter, Lily finds herself sitting at lunch contemplating a recent development.

(She's impressed)

* * *

Suggest topics for drabbles please. I usully write when struck by inspiration =)  
Oh, and review, I suppose, if you fancy it. (*hinthint*


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